Afternoon

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Dec-28-2003
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Qalqiliya, Sunday afternoon, December 28, 2003.MachsomWatch Observers: DG, YV, S, AD 14:00, the Qalqiliya checkpoint is open: Traffic is flowing freely, except for people with blue [Israeli] ID cards.The soldiers on duty are IDF conscripts.In fact, everything’s quiet apart from the presence of Yoav, an officer, who’s looking for trouble. We saw him in a confrontation with a Palestinian family returning from the fields on a cart loaded with greenery. He ordered all of them to get down from the cart and when they dared to tell him that the only thing in the cart was greenery, he flared up and decided to show them who’s in charge.He said to [MachsomWatch's] D.: “When they spoke to me like that, I thought about making them stand here for a couple of hours." Yoav seems to be a soldier with an agenda: “One day we’ll transfer all the Palestinians out of here, and we’ll control all the land.” It’s worth keeping an eye on him, because in our experience,even a quiet checkpoint can turn into hell because of a single soldier who picks fights with people. We spoke to a DCO [civilian administration] officer who walked by.No one’s being allowed through to Nablus, because of military operations there. Several ambulances went through, and we tried to hand out "Moked" cards [contact info for the Center for the Defense of the Individual] in case they would be detained when trying to leave Qalqiliya.